Another Perspective on Jimmy Swaggart’s Death
By: Deji Yesufu
Jimmy Swaggart died on the 1st day of July, 2025. He was ninety years old. It is sad that the epitaph that will follow him into the grave will be the headline attached to his death – “Jimmy Swaggart, Disgraced Tele-evangelist, Dies at 90”. Swaggart was a leading television evangelist in the 1980s. However, in 1988, it was discovered that he had a secret sexual liaison with a prostitute and would eventually be exposed, with the American media making a big deal out of it. The image of Swaggart, making a public plea for mercy both to God and his church members, is probably one of the most-watched scenes in television history. Swaggart is seen crying, calling on God to forgive his sins, and saying over and over – “…I have sinned…” Many people did not think Swaggart took his confessions seriously. They regard the “I have sinned” moment as a TV stunt made in a calculated attempt to preserve his place in the ministry and, particularly, donors’ funds. Jimmy Swaggart, a long-time Assemblies of God minister, would eventually be restored to ministry, but he never returned to the height of fame he had before his sins were revealed.
Dr. Tony Costa, a reformed Baptist minister in Canada, wrote a short tribute to Swaggart, saying that regardless of his failures, he owes his conversion, under God, to the ministry of Jimmy Swaggart. That statement was a confirmation of a sentiment that was running through my mind: men like Swaggart, who represent the old-line Pentecostal denominations, had quite some orthodoxy to their ministry and I will be very reluctant to bring an anathema on their ministry because of their professed Pentecostalism, like I might do with a committed Prosperity Gospel preacher. And even the fact that he failed in ministry, and still continued to work as a pastor, does not detract from the legitimacy of his profession to the person of Jesus Christ. Different denominations handle failure in ministry in different ways. Some will regard the minister as having been permanently disqualified from ministry, while others take less drastic steps of sanction. My concern is not with what happened to Swaggart’s ministry after his moral failures; my concern is with the manner in which Christians view this matter of sin.
When Swaggart died, and the newspapers reminded us of his sin of 1988, the following scripture came to my mind: “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgement; and some men they follow after” (1 Timothy 5:24). One can say that Jimmy Swaggart’s sins went beforehand to God’s judgement. I think what that means is that God exposed that pastor in this life, and he suffered the consequences of his indiscretion throughout his life, and he is even still suffering it in death. However, that is God’s mercy to him. The persons who are truly accursed, and who will wish that they were never born, are those whose sins “follow after”. While some of these people condemned Jimmy Swaggart and made a ministry out of labelling him and his likes false teachers, their sins were successfully concealed on earth, only to be revealed in heaven. Some would be found out to have been as sexually deviant as Swaggart was, if not more deviant. Some will preserve their reputation, and they will die as “great men of God”, “profound miracle workers”, “the greatest reformed thinker of our time”, but their sins will follow them to the throne of God. Their sins will not be exposed on earth, but in heaven, where not only will their reputation be destroyed, but also their bodies and their souls in hell.
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Christians must understand that God does not see sexual scandals in the same manner the world sees them. The world may make it into headlines, news, and epitaphs – that is their business. Sexual scandals are all within the gracious outworking of God’s providence in reforming and sanctifying the Christian Church. The minister in the middle of a sexual scandal is a man whom God deeply loves. If God hates that man, God will help that man conceal his sins until it is way too late for him to repent of them. So, when a pastor “falls”, the Church must begin to see the incident from God’s perspective. We must understand that a destroyed reputation and even disqualification from ministry or a failed marriage that result from all these are all part of God’s way of sanctifying the person involved. It is also a careful reminder to those in ministry that none of us is immune to sin. It is a time to “take heed to oneself” lest we fall. It is a time to destroy every form of pride and self-righteousness within us, and to both thank God and plead with him to help us stand. When it comes to sexual sins, those who are not guilty of it should never take up a Pharisaical mindset, but should thank God daily for preservation.
A minister falling into sexual sins should also remind the Church about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We should thank God that Jesus said he had not come to save the righteous, but sinners. We should thank God that we have the account of David, and Solomon, and Samson, and Peter right there in the Bible. We should thank God for Psalm 51, and we should remind ourselves that both those who have sinned sexually and those who have done it in their hearts are in the same category as far as a righteous God is concerned. We should look closely at Matthew 1:21 and celebrate the fact that the Son of God came into this world to save sinners, for which you and I are chief. The fall of a minister should be a time to apply the blessing of the blood on the church. This will not detract from the administrative decision of the local church to either disqualify the minister, demote him, or even forgive him. Whatever the Church does must be in view of God’s gracious work to us all who are sinners ourselves.
Jimmy Swaggart lived a very long time. I get the impression that God wanted him to feel the full weight of his misdemeanour, and I think that the disgrace is sufficient punishment for him. Just before his sexual misdemeanour was discovered, Swaggart was at the forefront of revealing the sexual misadventures of his fellow pastors. He was one of the few people who cast the greatest aspersion on Jim Bakker, another televangelist who was discovered to be having an affair with his secretary. Swaggart saw Bakker as a competitor and was too happy to pull him down. The year did not end before his own sins were discovered. These things happen for our own learning. When pastors’ sins are found out, it is not the time to rush to Facebook or help the worldly media propagate the news. It rather should be a time for careful introspection because we very well could be at the receiving end of it all, too. When we write like this, some tell us we are lowering the standards of God’s righteous judgment. The truth is that none of us wants to come face to face with God’s righteous judgement. God’s holiness will condemn all sins equally. What we should celebrate is that God has very graciously given us a way out of sin through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. He has also given us His Holy Spirit to sanctify us through life. If these two things become the pursuit of the churches, we will have very little time left to bother with ministers who have fallen.
Jimmy Swaggart knew the Lord Jesus Christ. He has today gone to rest from his labours. He has handed the baton to us. Let us run our race circumspectly: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). Amen.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]
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